Just a Small Difference
by Jane Elliott
Summary: Nick comes back from a mission to find that Stephen isn't dead. However, there are a few small changes to the man that Nick knew. Nick/Stephen, in a way. Written for the 2008 Yuletide fic exchange.


**Just a Small Difference**

Nick wiped a hand across his sooty face and sighed. He didn't know why Helen had felt the need to burn down a few acres of Jurassic-era jungle, but the damage was done. At least the fire hadn't spread too far. Hopefully there wouldn't be any long-lasting impact to the timeline.

The trek back to the anomaly was a silent one, as they frequently were these days. Just another reminder that Nick had royally buggered his life. Not that Stephen had been a chatty man, but silences with him had been comfortable and familiar. Warm. This silence was merely awkward and tense and miserable, as the soldiers were still mourning Captain Ryan's death, just as Nick was mourning Stephen's. Even Connor and Abby's chatter would have been very welcome right now, but as neither one had much experience with firefighting or with the Jurassic era, they'd opted to stay back and do some tests on Connor's latest anomaly scanning invention.

The anomaly was where they'd left it, which was a relief after the whole Silurian incident, and soon Nick was back in the present. Connor and Abby were also right where he left them, fiddling with the settings on the handheld anomaly detector, with Jenny and a couple of black-clad special forces types at their side. He didn't quite realize something was wrong until he heard the clicking of several assault rifles being cocked and a husky female voice called out, "Nick, I don't care how much we're fighting, you don't -- whoa!"

Nick frowned at the stranger: she was tall, almost taller than he was, with bright blue eyes, dark heavy eyebrows, and long, nearly-black hair pulled up into a pony tail. She had on jeans and a flannel shirt, and she was carrying a very large handgun. "Nick?" she said calmly. "What's going on?"

"Well, at least I'm not the only one this time," Nick muttered. Louder he said, "Who are you?"

"Oh no," Abby whispered, while Connor groaned and muttered, "Not again."

"Stephanie," the stranger said slowly, ignoring both Abby and Connor. "Stephanie Hart." Nick's heart stopped, but the woman continued, "This is like the Claudia Brown incident, isn't it?"

"Yes," Nick said hoarsely.

Stephanie sighed and holstered her gun. "Just tell me. How am I different?"

"Well, for one thing, you were dead," Nick said.

"Oh," Stephanie said in a small voice. She cleared her throat. "Okay. Anything else?"

"Um, do you have a brother?"

Stephanie frowned. "No."

"Well, then, you were a man." Nick winced as he said the words. Stephanie looked stunned.

"This explains so much!" Connor burst out, rubbing his hands in blatant glee as his inner nerd clearly overwhelmed his inner tact. Abby smacked him in the stomach.

Stephanie shook her head. "So I'm guessing we weren't dating, then."

Nick gaped. "Are we dating now?"

"Just over two years," she said dryly. "Come on, Lester can debrief you in the morning. I think you and I need to have a chat over a pint. Or three."

"But-"

"Did you get Helen?" she added.

Nick's eyes narrowed. "So I'm guessing this means you _didn't _have an affair with my wife?"

Stephanie cleared her throat. "Time for that pint, I think."

"Oh my God," Nick said.

"Oh my God!" Connor crowed. Abby smacked him again.

"Sir, we can make the report," one of the soldiers offered.

Nick could kiss the man. "Thanks, I appreciate that."

"Trust me, it's not a problem," the man said. "At all." He leaned in a bit closer. "And if you happen to get any details..." Nick glared at him. "Uh, you'll be keeping them to yourself, clearly. Right. Have a good night, sir."

"You, too," Nick said sourly. He checked in quickly with Connor and Abby then turned to the woman who had been shadowing him. "Ready?"

"No point in putting it off," she said, heading for the gate. Nick quickly followed.

They were almost out of the forest when she added, "And you'll take the guestroom, of course."

Which meant they were both living at his house. Nick groaned and started surreptitiously looking for Helen. With a situation this horribly awkward, it was hard to believe that his wife wasn't watching.

Things improved a bit during the drive as Nick found that even with the ridiculous situation, silences with Stephanie were as comfortable as silences with Stephen had been. Of course, that made sense, if they were the same person. Sort of. Though Claudia Brown and Jenny Lewis were also the same person, and they were nothing at all alike, so that hypothesis didn't have a lot of merit.

Nick sighed. "We should probably compare details, see if anything else has changed."

"All right," Stephanie said. "Why don't you start."

They spent the rest of the drive comparing notes, and as far as Nick could tell, the only difference in this timeline was with Stephen/Stephanie. Though, honestly, that one difference was more than enough.

As they pulled up to the house, Stephanie said, "Okay, we've been beating around the issue long enough. Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

She sent him a withering look and unlocked the door. She had her own key. "Tell me how I'm different from Stephen."

"You aren't all that different," Nick admitted. "It's actually kind of scary how similar you are. Though Stephen didn't like me the way you apparently like me."

"Are you sure?" she asked, unloading weaponry on the kitchen bench.

"Of course I'm bloody well sure!" Nick snapped.

"Hm." She produced a lockbox from underneath the counter and finished stowing the guns. Once they were safely locked away, she crossed her arms, leaned back against the sink, and eyed Nick.

"What?" Nick asked.

She shrugged. "Nothing, really. I just find it hard to believe that he felt nothing for you."

"I'd like to think that he and I were friends." She still didn't look convinced. "Oh, come on. Just say it."

"All right." She dropped her arms and straightened. "We've known each other for over a decade now, and I've been your lab technician for the last eight years. I'm assuming that's the same as with Stephen?"

Nick nodded, already not sure he liked where this was going.

Stephanie shook her head, looking exasperated. "You aren't a stupid man, Nick, so I'm assuming you're just being deliberately dense. Eight years as a lab tech? Do you know how many tutoring positions opened up during that time? I have a degree, I have experience, and I'm connected with the University. It would have been so easy for me to find a job with more pay and more prestige. But I didn't do that. I stayed. And you have to know that I stayed for you."

Nick stared at her helplessly. What she said made sense, but when he tried to imagine Stephen pining over him for years... he just couldn't wrap his brain around the idea. This was all happening too fast. He needed time to think. "Why don't we sleep on it and talk it over in the morning?"

"Fine," Stephanie said with a sigh. "You know where the guest room is."

Nick certainly did. In fact, that's where Helen had stayed when she first reappeared in his own timeline and he wondered how his relationship with Stephanie in this timeline had been affected by that reappearance. He wasn't ready to think about that too deeply just yet, so he simply wished Stephanie a good night and retreated to the guest bedroom.

He spent most of the night brooding.

ooo

By morning, he'd come to a few conclusions. The most important was that there was absolutely nothing he could do about the situation -- if nothing else he'd learned that from the whole Claudia Brown fiasco. What was done was done, and there wasn't anything to do now but make the best of it.

So he had a new coworker and as far as he could tell, she wasn't going to be nearly as irritating as Jenny. That was somewhat good.

Of course, he also had a new roommate, and as much as he wanted to chuck her out immediately, it wouldn't be fair considering in this timeline she had every right to be here. How bad could a roommate be, anyway? They'd already lived together for some time, so she probably knew his habits and it wasn't as if he spent much time at home anyway. And if she did prove to be too much trouble, he could always tell her to find her own place.

He was still thinking over that decision as he went to the kitchen, so it was a bit of a surprise to find Stephanie already there. She was leaning back against the counter, a cup in her hand, and as he walked in, she nodded him towards a mug that was sitting on the bench.

They sipped their coffee in silence, Stephanie eyeing Nick speculatively and Nick doing his best to pretend that he didn't notice Stephanie eyeing him. Stephanie spoke first. "Do you want me to move out?"

"Not necessarily," Nick said, aiming for casual, but falling pretty far short. Stephanie looked surprised, so he added, "It's your home, too. Might as well make the best of it." He thought about adding that she could always move out later if it the roommate situation didn't work, but for some reason the words just didn't want to come out.

"Hm." Stephanie knocked back the rest of her coffee and said, "Come on. We usually ride in together."

"Right," Nick said, for lack of anything more useful. He drained his cup and set it on the bench. "And so it begins," he muttered to himself as they walked out the door.

ooo

Everything was awkward at the ARC, though at least this time Nick had the benefit of corroborating witnesses to the timeline change, which made it very difficult for everyone to laugh off the situation as a mental breakdown on Nick's part. Jenny Lewis was uncharacteristically quiet, and she spent much of the day looking as if she wanted very much to ask Nick something, but never got around to doing so. Connor had decided that the situation wasn't really amusing (probably due to Abby's gentle influence), and insisted on offering Nick some entirely unwanted moral support. Abby spent most of the day sequestered with Stephanie -- apparently they were closer in this timeline, which made sense, even if it made Nick's head ache.

As a result of all of the awkwardness, Nick was openly relieved when the anomaly alarm went off in the middle of the afternoon, and he didn't think he was the only one who felt that way. They loaded up the truck in record time and headed north, with Stephanie driving, Connor playing with his electronics, and Abby making up tranquilizer darts with varying degrees of potency. Nick tried to focus on what was coming up ahead, but his eyes kept wandering over to look at Stephanie and his thoughts kept coming back to the idea that Stephen wasn't dead anymore, just different. Very, very different.

A couple of hours later, they arrived at a small forest, barely larger than a grove of trees, but isolated enough in the countryside that Jenny hopefully wouldn't have much to do. Stephanie and Abby climbed out of the truck and began arming themselves with impressive competence, while Nick eyed the forest for any signs of impending creature attacks and Connor grumbled about not being allowed a gun. Again. All in all, business as usual, except that Stephen was a woman.

Nick considered that thought and then considered suggesting that Stephanie stay behind him as he led the way into the forest. Then he considered how Stephen would have reacted if Nick had suggested such a thing to him and managed to keep his mouth shut.

Stephanie and Abby had a quick discussion over who would go where and then Abby and Connor were off away from the trees while Stephanie and Nick were left with wandering directly into the grove, Stephanie in the lead. Nick found himself putting a lot more effort into not looking at Stephanie's behind than he'd ever had to put into ignoring Stephen's.

They were about a hundred yards in when they stumbled across the web. The _massive _web that nearly covered an entire tree. Stephanie went white and Nick found himself experiencing some rather uncomfortable flashbacks. "Did you get bitten by a giant centipede a few months ago?"

"Yeah," she said, still looking a bit green. "I guess Stephen did as well, yeah?"

"He did," Nick said grimly.

"And let me guess -- you got the venom needed for the cure by going in and letting the bug bite you."

"No, it bit the padding I had on under my suit."

"So there was no danger at all then," Stephanie said dryly.

Nick thought it best not to answer that, but it didn't help. She just kept on talking. "How did you justify that to yourself? I mean, the Nick of my timeline did it because we were together, but you didn't have that excuse."

"I would have done the same for anyone," Nick said hotly.

"Right, so if Major Anderson had been bitten, you would have gone in with no other protection than a bit of gauze around your middle."

Nick had no idea who Major Anderson was, but he just nodded sharply. "Of course." Probably. In the adrenaline of the moment, maybe.

"If you say so," Stephanie said dubiously.

"Besides," Nick said. "The spiders were the least dangerous animal in that situation."

"Yes, that's very comforting."

They were silent then, as they circled the tree and peered into the web for any sign of its creator. Nick noticed that Stephanie had slung the tranquilizer gun over her shoulder and pulled out her handgun and he promptly pulled his own gun out of its holster. Tranquilizers were highly unlikely to work against arthropods. Unfortunately, handguns weren't likely to be much more helpful. "Maybe we should go back for something a bit more powerful," Nick whispered.

"You can if you want," Stephanie murmured, stepping deeper into the woods, her eyes scanning left, right, up into the trees, then back to the left and the right again. Nick hesitated for a moment, muttered a curse, and kept on following.

After a few minutes, Nick was getting seriously worried. The woods were starting to get darker, the trees thicker, and there still wasn't any sign of the creature.

Which, of course, was when it dropped down right on top of him.

"Stephen!" Nick shouted as he used both his hands to hold the spider's head away from him, the fangs just a few centimetres from his neck. He didn't even know where his gun had gone and at the moment he was too busy to look for it, but he had no illusions about how long he could survive hand-to-hand combat against a massive arachnid. Even though just a few seconds had passed, he was already starting to weaken, and he could very nearly feel the razor sharp fangs digging into his neck.

Suddenly gunshots rang out and Nick found himself splattered with bright yellow fluid. The arachnid abruptly stopped fighting him and he had a half second to savor his relief before the creature's legs gave out and it collapsed down on top of him. Nick grunted. "Could use some help here."

Stephanie held out a hand and, with a surprising amount of strength, dragged Nick out from under the spider. "Thanks," he said breathlessly.

"Not a problem," she said. "But next time, try to call out the right name when I'm saving your life."

Nick winced. "I'll remember."

"Good. Let's see if Connor's found the anomaly yet."

As it turned out, the anomaly had already closed, so all that was left to do was to call in a clean-up team and head back to ARC to give their report. It didn't take long and when they left Lester was still staring in profound disgust as Connor explained just how many eggs a single spider could lay. Nick was quite sure that little grove of trees wouldn't survive the night.

They spent most of the drive home debating whether the spider had come from the Carboniferous or Silurian era and considering neither era was a perfect fit, it was a lively debate. Nick found himself enjoying the situation despite his expectations.

Dinner was eaten while watching a football game on the telly. Celtic won, which put Nick in a good enough mood that he didn't complain when Stephanie put in a tape on fencing, though he did mutter under his breath about how she and Stephen even had the same hobbies.

Fencing proved to be more interesting than Nick had anticipated and the company even better. He went to bed that night thinking that maybe things would work out all right after all.

ooo

Surprising Nick, if no one else, things got better. While Stephanie had survived Helen's twisted menagerie (thanks to the presence of an ARC soldier that hadn't been present in Nick's timeline), Leek was still gone for good and Lester had taken charge of the day-to-day operations of the center. Lester continued to be an arse, but having proof that he really was on the side of right made it far easier to deal with his shite.

Meanwhile, Jenny's personality improved greatly now that she didn't consider Nick completely insane, Abby was experimenting on tranquilizers that could possibly be used on insects, and Connor was having the time of his life coming up with ever more outrageous theories about alternate universes, changing timelines, and the possible origins of the anomalies. Aliens had been mentioned more than once.

And Stephanie...well, Stephanie had decided that it was time for Nick to learn a bit more about fighting with his bare hands. Nick, in turn, had discovered that being tossed about and held down by a woman could be deeply, painfully erotic, and he spent a good portion of every session trying to pretend that he wasn't aroused. Judging from Stephanie's amused looks, he didn't think he was particularly successful.

Overall, everything was going great, which was why Nick was so stunned when, three months after he entered this timeline, Stephanie announced that she was thinking of moving out.

"What?" Nick asked. "Why?"

"Because a bloke asked me out today," she said flatly. "And I told him I was involved with someone before I remembered that I wasn't."

Nick felt a deep and entirely unexpected wave of emotion batter him. "What bloke?" he growled.

Stephanie looked at him incredulously. "Are you jealous?"

"No," Nick said quickly.

Stephanie just shook her head and sighed. "Nick, I waited for you before. For nearly six years I waited for you, and I don't regret a minute of it. But I'm not about to do it again."

"What if...what if you didn't have to wait?"

Stephanie let out an annoyed huff of air. "You must be joking."

"I'm not," Nick swore. "I'm really not. I just...I just want a chance. To make my case."

Stephanie sighed. "Honestly, you're worse than my Nick was."

"Well, he had five years to get used to the idea," Nick said. "And he wasn't competing against a ghost."

"I _never_," Stephanie started hotly.

"I know," Nick said. "But he was there. He's always there."

They stood there silently for a moment while Nick let Stephanie mull that over for a moment. When she didn't respond, he said, "I'm not trying to copy what you had with him. All I'm asking for you to give me a chance."

Stephanie let out a slow, deep breath. "How about dinner?"

Nick let out an internal cheer. Outwardly, he just smiled. "Dinner sounds great."

END


End file.
